learning this language of pictures

I'm closing in on a year of study... What's improved most is my ability to see a small spread of cards and get an instant and good sense of its message; the interactions between the characters and how they talk to each other combined with the elements, and seeing the whole thing as a snapshot in time. Putting this into words or a clear sentence still takes time but I can do it, and this has been the major jump for me in terms of overall understanding of this language. Sometimes I feel like an archeologist interpreting pictures on the walls of caves or ancient buildings. Most of the time Im still a five year old sounding out the syllables which form the words which form the sentences etc etc.

Over the next year or so I can imagine this is where I'll improve most. Maybe by then I'll reach "sixth grade level" reading. This is good

Where have you seen your biggest leaps in understanding the language of pictures

I think I am not very visual (that must be why I like runes now ), so for me the understanding has never been exactly through the pictures, but from the meanings I have attached to each card.

Pictures probably influence me, but it must be little influence.

I read others here whose reading seems to be all from the idea they get from images. Maybe they can tell you something more.

Anyway, I intend to get some deck in the future with which I'll only guide myself from seeing pictures...don't know if it will work for me, but I will try.

HerzogIsGod said:

Where have you seen your biggest leaps in understanding the language of pictures

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Just the impossibility of truly reading just pictures. I'm not sure any of us ever really do this. Once you read a LWB or a companion book, or something here or whatever...the information starts filtering through something else. I think perhaps only the illiterate in the Renaissance could boast truly reading images. But we try.

I think it is a lifetime's quest truly reading only pictures (if that is the way one wants to read). I think that despite living in a world in which we are bombarded with visual stimuli, most of us really don't know how to truly interpret only what we see as images...

The language of the pictures requires that you forget what you know, and not search your memory banks, but stay totally present and immerse yourself in the imagery. Then you can say it how you see it. Thats when you are letting the pictures speak for themselves, noticing who's looking at who, whats in between them, noticing that card in the spread that jumps out at you, which cards touch and which dont,theres a whole interactive story going on. I've always found that part amazing, the way the story unfolds, just from the pictures. It seems the more meanings you attach to each card, the more you have to tune them out, to read that way. I started off not knowing the book meanings,but felt i had to learn ,because anytime someone asked me 'what does that card mean" i simply didn't know, so i'd have to fumble round with a book which doesnt do much for confidence. But i prefer the language of the pictures any day.. Thats what drew me to the cards, its why i bought my first deck, there are no detailed written descriptions on the cards, if there were, i dont think i wouldve like them much

queenxofxwands said:

The language of the pictures requires that you forget what you know, and not search your memory banks, but stay totally present and immerse yourself in the imagery.

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Yes... it also affords an opportunity toward poetry or poetics. I've had to unlearn quite a bit lately. It's hard, but I'm trying

My biggest leap of learning was complete trust ("perfect love and perfect trust"). Once I got that trust, my readings became better overnight. The trisk is not to withhold the trust until after the readings improve, but to trust first.

Chicken and egg.

HerzogIsGod said:

Where have you seen your biggest leaps in understanding the language of pictures

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My biggest leaps of understanding have come from observation: doing a reading and then observing what happens. I also have some books on psychic development and have done some of the exercises in them and it's also turned on a few light bulbs in my brain
And then there have been occasional psychic flashes that have convinced me that there is an unseen dimension out there. I'm still learning and the best way of learning is through practice! It actually still amazes me that the universe can respond to our questions through the language of symbols!

queenxofxwands said:

The language of the pictures requires that you forget what you know, and not search your memory banks, but stay totally present and immerse yourself in the imagery.

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Let the protoself decide? Fair enough, that takes some deep meditation or deprivation. Those would be the "pre programed by gene reactions" to a image. Pre cortex reactions so to speak.


Our minds see even emotions in pictures ( well technically by the time we get to respond to a emotion it is a feeling. Emotions are for the body.) The language of pictures are how our high consciousness perceives everything. I embrace my knowledge and let my brain bring images up to my mind. Sometimes I can pick and choose other times my core consciousness overrides my perceived self and I go with intuition. Letters are pictures, everything is either a symbolic representation of a picture..so a language ( a set of images)to represent a image or a actual image being directly interpreted by the brain and feed back to the mind as a object within a 3d map of us in relationship to that object or part of the object depending on our awareness and focus. There is no way that I know of around this, nor do I need one personally.

BTW I love this questiion. It's just fascinting and I can't wait to hear what everyone else has to say!

Where I made my biggest leaps in understanding what comes to me with the images is learning to close down/stop my thinking more and more as I look at a card. It took me a long time to get proficient at it. But by now I'm so used to it that it comes pretty naturally and is intintive when I see the cards before me.

The way I read, thought, any thought is the enemy. As soon as I start to think, the reading becomes inaccurate. I need to FEEL the answer and thought and feeling are opposites for me, so I have learnt. Thought closes down the process.

I tend to separate the image into parts: shapes, colours, textures,articles of clothing....then feel what each is telling me. It starts a flow and once I am quickly typing away it kind of flows more quickly and before I know it I'm doign something that I suspect is chanelling. Like the answer is being dictated to me. I feel when I am on track and if I veer off track I also feel that. Then I need to stop, take a deep breath, delete that part that was faulty and take a break and come back and start over from where I left off.

But that is what I do. And the answer is that I had to learn to look at the image with NO thought at all. To completely turn off all thought to get to the rest. Like I have to become an empty vessel as I look at the image for the answer(s) to come and fill me.

BTW I don't totally ignore the set meanings in a reading, athough they form a small part of it. But your question was only about how we learnt to use the images and what was most important in doing so.
Babs

nisaba said:

My biggest leap of learning was complete trust ("perfect love and perfect trust"). Once I got that trust, my readings became better overnight. The trisk is not to withhold the trust until after the readings improve, but to trust first.

Chicken and egg.

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Very much agree with too. The trust has to be there (trust in the cards, trust in yourself and trust in the connection between yourself and the cards) for your readings to really take off and soar.

I did my best in the beginning to have an open mind and on those days when I was not sure in the beginning I did my best to "fake it till I made it" (meaning to convince mseylf that I trusted even when I was unsure. That makes all the diffference.

Babs